Perivascular spaces on 7 Tesla brain MRI are related to markers of small vessel disease but not to age or cardiovascular risk factors

Utrecht Vascular Cognitive Impairment (VCI) Study group

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Cerebral perivascular spaces (PVS) are small physiological structures around blood vessels in the brain. MRI visible PVS are associated with ageing and cerebral small vessel disease (SVD). 7 Tesla (7T) MRI improves PVS detection. We investigated the association of age, vascular risk factors, and imaging markers of SVD with PVS counts on 7 T MRI, in 50 persons aged ≥ 40. The average PVS count ± SD in the right hemisphere was 17 ± 6 in the basal ganglia and 71 ± 28 in the semioval centre. We observed no relation between age or vascular risk factors and PVS counts. The presence of microbleeds was related to more PVS in the basal ganglia (standardized beta 0.32; p = 0.04) and semioval centre (standardized beta 0.39; p = 0.01), and white matter hyperintensity volume to more PVS in the basal ganglia (standardized beta 0.41; p = 0.02). We conclude that PVS counts on 7T MRI are high and are related SVD markers, but not to age and vascular risk factors. This latter finding may indicate that due to the high sensitivity of 7T MRI, the correlation of PVS counts with age or vascular risk factors may be attenuated by the detection of "normal", non-pathological PVS.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1708-1717
JournalJournal of cerebral blood flow and metabolism : official journal of the International Society of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism
Volume36
Issue number10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2016 Oct
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

© The Author(s) 2016.

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • Neurosciences
  • Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Medical Imaging

Free keywords

  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Aging
  • Brain/blood supply
  • Cardiovascular Diseases/diagnostic imaging
  • Cerebral Small Vessel Diseases/diagnostic imaging
  • Cerebrovascular Circulation/physiology
  • Cohort Studies
  • Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2/diagnostic imaging
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Magnetic Resonance Angiography
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging/methods
  • Male
  • Risk Factors

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